The World polio day was celebrated Friday October 24, 2014 in a context marked by the resurgence of the disease in Cameroon. Seven new cases were detected between October 2013 and April 2014, prompting the World Health Organization (who) to declare the Cameroon, exporter of wild polio virus.
In the early 1990s polio affected 350,000 people in 125 countries worldwide. She was still one of the most feared diseases crippling thousands of children every year and causing many deaths.
Cameroon wanted to eradicate polio in 2009 through a series of campaigns but from 2013, the country plunged back into the epidemic with many cases. Medics explained that despite national vaccination schemes that sought to reach out to all the regions of the country, the spread of the virus could possibly have resurfaced because of non adherence to immunization campaigns, and neglect of certain families.
WHO calls for 'international emergency' in the fight against polio with the objective that in the coming months they will eradicate it. "End polio" was the theme of this other world year’s celebration.
Its origin is equivalent to Rotary International and its many partners for this cause (non exhaustively and in disorder, Who, UNICEF, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, but also Governments around the world). For these organizations, and in General, the actions launched for 25 years in the fight against polio yielded spectacular results.
Among paralyzed patients, 5-10% die when their breathing muscles stop working. As long as a single child remains infected, all others, in all countries are at risk of contracting polio. Failure to eradication entirely the disease could lead to the resurfacing of new cases.
In most countries, global action allowed capacity-building to combat other infectious diseases in developing monitoring systems and effective vaccination, polio is a highly contagious disease caused by a virus that invades the nervous system and can cause total paralysis in a few hours.
The virus spreads from one person to another primarily by the fecal-oral route or less frequently through a common vehicle (water or food contaminated, for example) and multiplies in the intestine.
Friday October 24, 2014, on the occasion of the world day of fight against the disease, the Assistant Director of immunization at the MOH said that travellers must now be vaccinated at airports in Cameroon. It is an oral vaccine given to travelers for four weeks prior to their departure from the country.
The vaccination will be made at the level of the international vaccination centre. Cameroon has twelve.
